


Five Times Bill Should Have Said Yes & One Time He Did

by orphan_account



Category: Tokio Hotel
Genre: 5+1 Things, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Schmoop, Twincest, th_fanfic FQF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-08
Updated: 2012-07-08
Packaged: 2017-11-09 10:36:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/454525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bill has a habit of saying no when he should have said yes...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Bill Should Have Said Yes & One Time He Did

**Author's Note:**

> For the LJ TH_fanfic FQF 2010. Thanks to everyone who helped me on the last minute beta hunt and a big thank you to MissKass for being the much needed Beta!

One.

Okay, sure, it _started_ as a bet, but that didn’t change the fact that Bill was incredibly excited _now_. After all, this was _Starsearch_! This could be a _huge_ opportunity and the perfect chance to get some real exposure on the band! It helped that the mental image of winning Starsearch and getting the band a record contract was burning away in his mind.

He had been skipping around the house in glee for weeks now and he could tell that he was starting to wear everyone’s nerves thin, but he had been finding it nearly impossible to remain calm. It was the most exciting thing to happen to him _ever_ , though it wasn’t like anything actually happened in this little back water town anyway...

It was Tom who had been bearing the brunt of Bill’s hyperactivity. Bill found it hard not to be around his twin and although Tom would never _not_ want his twin to be there, Bill knew that his bouncing would start to fray Tom’s patience eventually, just a little.

Tom on the other hand thought Bill could try his hardest to be the most annoying person he could possibly be for the rest of their lives, and he would never ever not want Bill to be by his side.

The twins were thirteen and Tom was very much growing into his hormones. Currently he was enjoying the company of Sara. The chance to impress a girl - even annoying ones like Milly - wasn’t a thing he was going to pass up lightly.

He hadn’t known Sara very long. It wasn't that Sara was new to the school, but Bill and Tom had not that long ago been split into separate classes, and Tom had found himself in a group full of people he didn’t actually know very well. A new chance to impress and make friends was a great thing, but the cost of leaving Bill behind was never worth it.

Tom tried his hardest not to feel guilty when he met new people or enjoyed the company of others, watching on as Bill was shoved to the back of the class by people who had hated the two of them from the beginning. It wasn’t Tom’s choice to move after all: they had been forced to. They had (in the privacy of Tom’s bed) cried about the situation and bitched about the teachers at great length, but that didn’t resolve the situation they had found themselves in. So Tom had, within his power, tried to make sure that Bill never suffered more than Tom could prevent.

He walked Bill to all of his lessons and they stayed together through all of their breaks. They walked together to and from school and then, of course, when they were at home they always stayed together. Nothing had actually changed there, but Tom refused to let himself ever fall out of the habit; especially not because some stupid teacher thought that they needed to be separated to ‘help their emotional development’.

But when it came to Tom’s puppyish following of Bill, Bill had drawn the line at making Tom attend Bill’s afterschool dance lessons. Bill didn’t make Tom go to them because he knew Tom would attend if he asked - even though he didn’t want to. If Tom had said he wasn’t going to do the lessons to begin with then Bill would have pulled the infallible twin card and made Tom go, but because Tom had offered he had taken pity on his uncoordinated twin and told him not to be silly. Bill was just contrary that way. 

Tom still insisted on waiting the sixty minutes of Bill’s lesson outside the hall, though, to reassure himself that no monsters (or mean sixteen-year-olds) would somehow harass Bill in the hour Tom had his back turned.

Sara was in Tom’s class, but she also took tap lessons after Bill’s contemporary dance, so Tom had alleviated his boredom by chatting to her in the few minutes before Bill came out. Tom had been flitting around the notion of asking her out, but he wasn’t going to date until Bill did, and thus far Bill had been showing no indication towards exploring the dating scene. That of course didn’t stop Tom trying his hardest to turn on the charm when talking to Sara, though.

“So I hear Bill’s gotten on Starsearch,” she said, admiration in her voice.

“Oh yeah, it’s in a couple of days. He’ll be on TV and everything; it’s quite cool.”

“Wow, are you excited?”

Tom chuckled. “He’s definitely excited, he won’t stop talking about it.”

“And you?” she prodded, spotting his omission.

“I’m proud of him, of course, but it’ll probably be really boring having to sit through those other kids and stuff.” He was fibbing; Tom found the whole thing incredibly exciting, but he knew it wasn’t very cool to be excited, or at least that’s what he thought. Cute, bubbly and joyous emotions weren’t for cool people, unless you counted Bill, but Bill could do whatever he liked.

“So are you not going then?” Sara asked.

“I’ll have to go,” Tom said, “Bill will want me there.” That was true of course, but it wasn’t as if it would be a chore.

“Boo!” shouted Bill, who had wrapped his arms around Tom’s waist from behind, laying his head on Tom’s shoulder and giving him a winning grin.

Tom didn’t jump, mostly because he was already used to that behaviour, so he turned in Bill’s hold and gave him a big hug in return. To an outsider it might seem that they had been separated for months, rather than a mere hour.

“Hi, Bibi, good lesson?” asked Tom, moving back slightly. Bill nodded enthusiastically in reply and started chatting about the new routine they had been learning.

Sara excused herself and Tom waved with a quick ‘see you’, but he wasn’t really paying attention to her anymore; Bill’s presence was like a magnet to Tom. Bill was the North to Tom’s South: they were happily drawn together forever.

What Tom didn’t realise was that Bill had heard the full conversation between Tom and Sara and wasn’t sure what to do. Tom had seemed so enthusiastic about the whole thing before, but if he was only acting that way to make Bill happy… What right did Bill have to ask Tom to do something he didn’t want to do? Bill was a bit hurt that he hadn’t really noticed Tom’s lack of enthusiasm for the show, and also by the fact that Tom wasn’t excited.

How was Bill so stupid? Of _course_ Tom wasn’t going to be interested in watching him prance around on stage. It was only Tom’s playing that had made Bill sound anywhere near acceptable, without Tom’s guitar it would just be boring and Tom would probably fall asleep through the other bits.

He wished he hadn’t signed up for the stupid thing now, not on his own, anyway. He was nothing without Tomi there. He had decided: he wasn’t going to make Tom sit through the Starsearch if he didn’t want to go. Tom would never suggest not going to Bill and so, like with the dance lessons, Bill was going to tell Tom that he didn’t have to come. That way it would be all Bill’s decision, and Tom wouldn’t have to feel bad about it.

He pressed his cheek to Tom’s shoulder and breathed deeply, it would be harder without Tom there, but he’d manage.

***

It was the next afternoon when Tom had broached the subject that Bill had been calmly avoiding.

“It’s not long 'til the Starsearch thing now, is it?” Tom asked, trying to engage Bill in conversation. The younger twin had been worryingly quiet for the better part of the day. Tom had quite expected Bill to be bouncing off the ceiling in excitement, but he had suddenly become very subdued.

“I suppose not.”

“You’re not getting nervous, are you?” Tom prodded.

“No, not at all.” Tom raised one eyebrow in response. “Okay, I’m a bit nervous, but it’s alright.”

“Well you don’t need to worry; I’ll be there.”

“No!” Bill all but shouted.

The confusion was obvious on Tom’s face. “No?” he asked.

“I mean, I didn’t think you were coming, we only got two tickets and...” Bill said quickly.

“That’s fine though, Gordon already said he’d stay home,” Tom explained.

Bill thought quickly of an excuse that would let Tom stay behind. “Grandma wanted to come, and they need a parent or guardian to be there and so mum’s going.”

“Oh,” Tom said, face visibly falling. “Well, I suppose if that’s what’s been organised…”

As Bill watched Tom walk away he couldn’t help feeling that he’d just made a really bad mistake.

***

As it turned out his grandma had already asked if she could come along - but Simone had said initially apologised and said no because of the limitations on tickets - so it wasn’t completely out of the blue to re-invite her.

As they got their things together to leave in the afternoon Tom stood by the front door, looking for all the world like someone had stolen his teddy bear and was sending him pieces of fur in the post. It almost made Bill relent and wonder if he’d been wrong, but it was too late now. They’d already picked up Grandma and packed all their things.

If Tom wanted to watch, Bill was sure that he could see it on TV, but he thought that Tom would probably end up just playing games, or going to hang out with Andi. Maybe he’d even go on a date, Bill had never really thought of what Tom might do if Bill wasn’t there.

The day of the show passed as a blur; starting with wild excitement and then the breathless joyful backstage interview. ‘This could really be it’ he thought, this was the first real taste of what fame would be like. All too soon he was getting the call to come backstage.

The performance seemed to be over in a flash, but waiting for the results felt like an age. As the judges had given the little rapping kid a full score Bill knew that his chances of winning had been greatly reduced, but people watched the show to see people sing, didn’t they? Surely they’d vote for him over Oliver? As Oliver was given an eighteen by the general public Bill knew that his chances of winning were almost nothing: he’d have to get a perfect twenty from the phone votes to win. He kept his face straight, though, as if he still thought he might pull it out of the bag.

At least it meant losing wasn’t a shock, Bill kept his composure as he gave a gracious hug to the smaller boy and then walked offstage. He wasn’t entirely sure how he found himself sniffling into his grandmother’s shoulder, but he knew one thing.

He wished Tom was there.

***

Tom on the other hand had been watching the show intently; he had loved Bill’s performance (even though he still maintained that the song was kind of dumb), but as the results were called out he could see the cracks in Bill’s otherwise pristine composure.

By the time Bill got home Tom was pacing up and down, prepared to start a rant about how stupid the judges were and how unfair the results were, but upon seeing Bill’s face he instead wrapped Bill up in his arms and took him to bed.

Bill felt bad now, but Tom was certain that none of this would matter in the future. After all, when they stuck together they could do anything.

 

Two

Bill didn’t have that many friends left from his time at school. He'd never been very popular, and the fame had made people hate him and worship him in such equal quantities that he found it hard to trust anyone. The few friends that he had still wanted to keep around were worth their weight in gold.

Andi had obviously been with the twins from the very beginning. Bill would definitely call him his best friend, though the only reason he wouldn’t say Tom was his best friend was because Tom was much more than that. Tom was his _everything_. It was a sentiment that couldn’t be summed up by something as plain as ‘Best Friend’, so Andi had, quite willingly, fallen into that role.

Every now and then, when the twins were off from touring and Andi wasn’t busy with university or his part time job, they would have a big get together. A little something more than a few short hellos and goodbyes were good to keep that precious friendship open.

Andi had decided; as the whole band was in town recording for their third studio album, that for their birthday the twins needed a party. ‘Nothing too big’, Andi promised, but if their blond friend was left to plan on his own the sizes often grew out of hand, so Bill had insisted that they go out somewhere as a group. At least then if crazy people invaded the party there were proper security teams available at the door to deal with them.

So that was how on the 31st Bill had found himself sprawled across Tom’s lap, one hand receiving a twinly massage and the other clutching at a mojito. He really should have taken some pity on Tom; he could feel the hard-on through Tom’s many layers of clothing (and shuffling about on top of him couldn’t have helped the situation), but it was _their_ birthday and Bill thought he was entitled to a little fun.

Eventually Tom took the drink from Bill’s hand and placed it on the table, then slid Bill off his lap and with a very significant look said, “I’m going to the men’s.”.

Bill was about to get up and follow him when Jana sat down next to him. Jana was a friend of Andi’s he had met at university and, having established that she wasn’t a crazy, felt it safe to introduce her to the band. Since then Bill had, generally speaking, enjoyed her company. He probably wouldn’t call her a close friend, but she was pleasant enough and it was nice having her around.

Georg had had his eye on Andi’s new friend for some time now. He had tried on several occasions to chat her up, with varying degrees of failure ranging from the mildly embarrassing to the downright suicidal. It turned out that Jana was not a fan of people trying to chat her up; she found it false and tacky and had sworn that she would never date someone who tried to use chat up lines on her.

Georg however was a great one for chat up lines, especially when he was three out of four sheets to the wind. Never being one to take no as a reasonable answer, he had continued with his advances, descending further and further down the ranks of one liners.

As this wasn’t one of the times where Bill was particularly interested in her company, he was going to excuse himself anyway; he was fairly sure that Jana wouldn’t begrudge him the use of the facilities.

“Arg!” she shrieked in a manner that clearly said she was pissed off and frustrated over something. Oh god, now Bill was _never_ going to get away.

“How come people think they can touch me? They’re obviously stupid or just have no concept of personal space.”

“Oh god, I know what you mean.” Bill joined in the conversation, knowing entirely what that was like. He refrained from asking her what exactly had happened in the hope of keeping the conversation short. However, it appeared that Jana was going to tell him what was going on whether he liked it or not.

“These guys at the bar just came up to me and started blabbering on about complete nonsense. Fucking angels and jogging and rubbish. Anyway, I tell them that I’m not interested,” she sighed, “in those exact words: ‘I’m not interested’, but apparently that doesn’t show enough disinterest, so they started saying how I was obviously out for a good time and all this crap, and one of them slapped me on the arse!” Her indignant tones were reaching shrill pitches.

“That’s terrible,” Bill said, glancing over the crowd, his gaze landing almost wistfully on the toilets on the other side of the room where Tom was almost certainly waiting for him. Jana followed his gaze through the crowd and spotted Georg a little way off.

“And that git,” she started, “I mean I know he’s a good friend of yours and everything, but I just can’t deal with the way he talks to me like I should be honoured to receive his attentions.”

“He’s really nice, I promise, he just gets really nervous around girls. None of us really had any time to work out what a normal, healthy relationship is.” Bill half lies, what he has with Tom is all the relationship Bill needs, regardless of what others might perceive as healthy or normal.

“I’ll take your word for that. I can’t deal with relationships myself. I swear the next person who tries to chat me up tonight will get slapped. I don’t care how good their intentions are.”

It was then that Georg spotted Bill and then Jana over the crowd. Bill was guessing from the amount of time they’d been there (and the haphazard way Georg was bumping into people on his journey through the crowd) that he’d drunk a fair bit more than his recommended daily allowance of alcohol.

“Speak of the devil,” she said, getting up to leave as Georg neared the booth. “See you later, Bill.”

Georg smiled as he watched Jana leave. Bill guessed he probably would have followed her to go and be pathetically puppy-dog-ish if she hadn’t become quickly lost in the crowd. He opted instead for plonking himself next to Bill with a dopey, lovestruck grin on his face.

“Were you talking to Jana?” Georg asked; Bill could practically hear the wistful sigh in his voice. Bill feared that if he didn’t engage Georg in some form of conversation (or drinking game) soon he would start misquoting lines of Shakespeare romances.

“We were just chatting about life,” Bill replied as succinctly as possible. He was thinking of Tom waiting for him in the bathroom stall and suddenly felt incredibly uninterested in talking, but Georg didn’t seem to get the hint.

“Ah, okay.” Georg said, seemingly preferring to forgo conversation in order to stare at the crowd in the general direction Jana had headed. 

Bill was about to get up and excuse himself when Georg spoke again suddenly. “Did she say anything about me?” he asked.

Bill remained silent and frozen; he really did not want to relay the conversation he had just had with Jana to Georg, especially if he was tipsy. Alcohol and rejection do not mix, and trying to calm a heartbroken drunk was currently not on Bill’s list on things to do. Tom however was high on Bill’s list of things to do (or to be done by), but Bill didn’t have time to reply before Georg spoke again.

“She didn’t even mention me, did she? She probably hates me.”

“No, not at all!” Bill supplied with false enthusiasm. He just knew as soon as it came out of his mouth that he was going to be caught in the stupid lie, but found himself unable to stop. “She said...” he paused, clutching at straws. “She said you seem nice.”

Georg’s previously forlorn face lit up. “Really? She said that?” He grinned wide. “Wow, I had thought I’d made a bad impression."

“No, no!” Bill said. “In fact, I think you should go talk to her. Get to know her a bit better.”

“You think?”

“Sure, have fun,” Bill dismissed, and sat there with a huge fake grin until Georg had disappeared into the crowd, whereupon Bill made his way as quickly as possible to the men’s room. As soon as he closed the door he was snagged round the waist and dragged into the cubicle; his neck being smothered in kisses as he went. An all-too-girly giggle passed his lips and he set about _really_ enjoying his party.

***

A thoroughly satisfying quickie later, Bill and Tom were wandering towards the bar, where Jana was being crowded by an overenthusiastic Georg. Bill couldn’t hear the conversation over the din of the club, but even from this distance he could see that it probably wasn’t going very well.

She turned suddenly; face filled with anger, and gave Georg what must have been a hefty slap to the face. She stopped almost as soon as she had done it, and suddenly brought both of her hands to her own face. Her stance changed almost instantaneously and she set to fussing over the marks she had made. By the time Bill and Tom had reached them she had already gotten some ice in a cloth and was holding it to his cheek, apologising profusely.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to hit you so hard. I was just getting so angry, and these stupid guys from earlier and...”

Georg smiled, breaking her tirade. “Don’t worry about it; I probably won’t remember any of this tomorrow anyway.”

Bill decided that despite the issues that he had inadvertently created, it was most definitely not his fault that Georg had gone the wrong way about talking to Jana.

And after all it had all worked out for the best in the end, if their three year anniversary was anything to go by.

 

Three.

Bill had never been particularly good with remembering dates. He wasn’t brilliant at remembering anything much that wasn’t music or work related, but dates and days of the week were something that he found particularly hard to get to grips with; he just played the venues and enjoyed his days off. After all, he had other people to remember the dates for him.

God, he thought, that sounded so spoiled, since when did he have _people_? It wasn’t like he’d been able to remember the dates before, but he'd resolved on the day when he'd had to ask for the fifth time what the date was (and therefore what town they were in) that he would try and keep a track of his _own_ calendar. He wasn’t going to be some stupid little starlet, no sir.

That was the start of Bill’s real attempt to know the date. He was good for a little while. He firmly set the date in his mind (the fourth of February) by about 6.30pm after asking practically everyone in the crew.

This planned effort lasted for about two weeks. He had honestly _tried_ to keep up with the date, but some days blurred into others, whilst the mornings before a show didn’t feel like the same day as the nights. So he would find himself thinking it was Thursday when it was Monday, and he hadn’t a clue what month they were in let alone what _day_ it was of that month.

However Bill was a proud person, he had professed loudly to everyone that he wouldn’t need help remembering the date from now on, and that meant he _couldn’t_ ask. He could have asked Tom, but he was fairly sure that despite Tom’s OCD over the set and tour lists, he still probably didn’t know the date.

It was a little while later that Bill had completely lost grip of the period of the year he was in, but he wasn’t worrying too much; the roadies and David would shift him easily from place to place without a mention of times and dates, so he could easily pretend that he was still completely caught up. He was finally caught out when Tom had come up to him asking about a date, an important date.

Mother’s Day.

And bugger if he knew when it was.

“Why do you ask?” Bill said, hoping to avoid the question for long enough to spot some hint as to what today was. He didn’t know _when_ Mother’s Day was, even if he _did_ have some idea of the date.

“I just thought we should do something for her, a nice meal or something since we were on tour when it was her birthday. I know it’s sometime soon, but it would be nice to book a place in advance.”

“Oh,” said Bill, pleasantly surprised at his twin’s thoughtfulness. “We’ve never really done anything big for Mother’s Day before.”

“I thought it would be nice, you know?” Bill nodded. “And I’ve been feeling like we should treat her after she found out about,” Tom paused, gesturing between the two of them, “us.”

Bill nodded once more; his mother had been shocked and worried. She shook from head to toe and had to have a stiff drink before she could even speak, but, and this was most important, she had accepted it. Not even one word that their relationship was illegal or wrong. She had taken a little while to think about the situation, but telling them to stop or to change had never appeared to cross her mind.

They didn’t talk about it after that first day, but the knowledge that someone knew of their relationship and treated them no differently made Bill feel much more secure, more _normal_. It was something that Bill had never thought he’d treasure feeling, but he supposed that when _every_ aspect of your life was abnormal, it was calming to have _something_ that others had.

“So do you know when it is?” Tom asked, interrupting Bill’s mental diversion.

Bill gave Tom an entirely blank stare.

“Do you want me to go ask David? I’m sure he would know.”

“No!” Bill yelped suddenly.

He had promised to himself that he would know the date, so Mother’s Day would be no different. It would be a Sunday, he knew that at least, but aside from that he had no clue. Wait, Tom said it was soon, so Bill made a haphazard guess that it wouldn’t be the next Sunday… how about the Sunday after that? It wasn’t an unreasonable suggestion. Okay, so he didn’t know what _today_ was, but no-one needed to know that. Thinking, he decided it was probably Friday given that they had a big show tonight, so that Sunday was soon-ish, but not too soon that Tom couldn’t get a decent booking.

“Erm, it’s not this Sunday, but the Sunday after that,” said Bill, sounding a lot more certain about it than he felt.

“Great,” Tom said before giving Bill a quick peck on his lips and fishing out his phone. “I’ll book a restaurant. Any problems with the Italian near us?”

“No,” the younger twin said, feeling pleasantly fuzzy from Tom’s kiss. “That’s fine. Wonderful.”

Bill didn’t know it, but it was Monday and he was wrong.

***

He had almost forgotten about the situation within two days. Tom hadn’t brought it up again, and since that was the way that any information got ingrained into his mind, he had simply not thought about it. Now it was six days later and almost four in the afternoon. Gustav had been on the phone for a long time to his mother and sister and earlier that day Georg had actually _woken up_ for some unusual reason.

Bill didn’t think on it much though; they all did unusual things from time to time. Hell, after reading about the evils of caffeine he had decided for a short while that maybe he should give up coffee. That particular notion lasted for all of about four hours, at which point a breakfast without his favourite beverage had rendered upon him such a stonking headache that he had almost thrown up. Fortunately he hadn’t told anyone of his attempt to quit caffeine cold turkey, so it had been passed off as an unfortunate migraine and never discussed again.

It wasn’t until much later, after a call from Gordon, that he'd found out the cause of the slightly unusual behaviour in his band mates.

“Bill,” he started, sounding positively furious, “do you know what day it is?”

“Thursday?” said Bill, hazarding a guess, hoping not to upset his stepfather any more.

“No Bill, it’s not.” Bill deflated upon Gordon’s response, feeling a little disappointed in himself. “It’s Sunday, Mothering Sunday to be precise.”

Oh bollocks.

No _wonder_ Gustav had phoned his mum. Bill felt terrible and god if Tom thought it wasn’t for another week then Bill had gotten his twin in trouble too.

“Is it really?” Bill said. Despite it being highly unlikely of Gordon, Bill still had hope that this was some sort of stupid joke.

“Did you know she was crying?” he asked. “She wouldn’t ever tell you, but she cries a lot. She worries so much, and then not even so much as a phone call for her troubles? She was devastated and I doubt it was for her own sake.”

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t forget, I promise, I just got the wrong date.” Bill proceeded to explain their plans, the nice meal in the expensive restaurant, their booked off weekend and Bill’s careless mistake, and Gordon didn’t seem quite as angry as before.

“Please don’t get angry at Tom, I had just guessed at the dates really, I didn’t even think to check.”

Gordon sighed. “Bill, you’ve never been good at remembering things. You should have just checked.”

“I know, I’m sorry, I’ll phone her now and explain our plans.”

“Good, you do that.” Gordon paused. “Oh, and Bill.”

“Hm?”

“Don’t tell your mother about this conversation. It would make her a lot happier if it looks like you remembered but just couldn’t get time off.”

Bill felt a little teary that Gordon would cover for him. “Thank you.”

“No problem, kiddo.”

In the end both he and Tom had phoned up their mother together and spoken to her for a good two hours, complaining about the rigours of touring and how they had wanted to wait until they had a decent amount of time in which to talk, rather than getting in just a five minute chat on the move. Simone was ecstatically happy to hear from them both and was practically giddy about seeing them the next weekend.

Bill had decided that he was going to invest in putting the correct date on his mobile phone, because he couldn’t deal with the emotional trauma of upsetting his mother so much over something so stupid again.

And Gordon was getting something huge for Father’s Day.

 

Four

Bill was curled up in bed. He had a high fever and the sniffles and something phlegming up his throat. If he attempted to speak (which currently he didn’t feel inclined to do) then he ended up sounding like a frog had well and truly made a comfortable home out of his voice box.

He had however managed to speak sufficiently well to convince David that he was just tired and needed a bit of sleep. He knew he hadn’t convinced Tom, though, because Tom always knew when something was wrong. He knew everything about Tom just as Tom knew everything about him and, though it was a little irritating to be fussed over by his protective twin, he knew that he would have been far more disappointed if he _had_ managed to fool Tom into believing he truly just needed a lie in. Tom was getting him tissues and soup, insisting that he keep himself warm, and was wrapping him up so tightly in layers of blankets that he was sure that he’d start to cook.

He didn’t know why people insisted that when you had a fever you had to stay warm in order for it to break. All Bill felt like doing was throwing himself into an ice-bath for a few minutes.

The bus was trawling along slowly to their next venue and though it was another two days before they were expected to play again, Bill was fretting that he wouldn’t have recovered his voice by the time they got there. Bill dreaded the notion of cancellation, it was something he absolutely hated to do under any circumstances; he could never put up with cancelling anything.

Tom, on the other hand, couldn’t care less. It was far more important to him that Bill was well, because he couldn’t stand his twin’s pain. Bill pain was Tom’s pain, Bill’s love was Tom’s love, Bill’s soul was Tom’s soul and when Bill was even the littlest bit hurt or upset it took all the power Tom could muster to prevent himself from killing the cause. Unless it was himself, of course; not because he thought any pain he caused Bill was deserved, but because he knew that it would cause even more pain to his younger twin to not have a protector.

Right at that moment he was perfectly content to cater to Bill’s every whim, except the request that Tom leave him alone and stop fussing.

Fortunately Bill was able to talk (and most importantly sing) by the next day, so he went about his way trying to conserve his voice, deciding that he wouldn’t tell Tom that it was still a little off. That wasn’t important. Tom was still worried, however; he could tell that Bill hadn’t made a full recovery and wasn’t giving himself any time to heal properly. Bill had been doing that a lot lately; pushing through any illness with little regard for his wellbeing. Tom could have kneed David in the balls for his blatant disregard for the potential seriousness of Bill’s bouts of sickness - it wasn’t like David didn’t care, but he didn’t pry any deeper than the image Bill presented. Tom was fairly sure that it should have been obvious to those close to the band that Bill was putting up a front. Frankly Tom was getting more and more worried the longer the tour went on.

Tom kept asking Bill if he wanted to go to a doctor and get his illnesses checked out, but Bill was insistent that it wasn’t necessary. They had a full show and bugger if he was going to risk being late just because he’d had a mild bout of flu-like symptoms.

Backstage, about two hours before the concert, Tom walked in on Bill failing to control a coughing fit. He was hacking his lungs out in a manner that made Tom feel his irrational fears were not actually very irrational at all. Tom quickly rushed in and rubbed a soothing hand on the top of Bill’s back, turning on the tap with his other hand and then filling a nearby glass with water. He passed the glass to Bill who gratefully took it and, after taking a few cautious sips, had stopped coughing as much and was able to breathe properly again.

“You know, if you’re still feeling ill we can cancel. Everyone will understand.”

Bill opened and closed his mouth a few times, almost like a fish gasping for air, but then coughed once more and shook his head. “No, I’m fine. I just got something stuck in my throat. I think.”

That was all that was said on the matter, but when the band got on stage it swiftly became obvious that everything was not okay. The first few songs were alright, though Bill was quite obviously not at his usual best, but less than half way through the concert Bill was skipping words. Tom could tell something was wrong; Bill wouldn’t forget a single word in the middle of the sentence and as the show progressed it was getting worse. Tom wouldn’t stop playing until Bill told him to stop - he always followed Bill’s lead on stage - but he was getting desperately close to calling a halt to the show himself.

It was at “Übers Ende der Welt” that Bill was barely getting a word out in each phrase and quickly made a signal to cut the show. Tom stopped playing and the fans were quiet, they knew something was seriously wrong. A person would have to have been a fool not to notice it.

Tom followed Bill off the stage and vaguely heard someone say that something was wrong, and that the band would be right back. But Tom didn’t really care. Like hell he was going back out there right now.

He stopped just in the wings, out of the view of the crowd, and asked Bill what was wrong. As Bill opened his mouth and managed to produce barely audible rasping sounds before burying his face in Tom’s chest, weeping silently into his shirt, the answer was obvious.

Bill had lost his voice.

Tom hadn’t thought it possible to be so scared before, but apparently his fear could reach levels that were as yet unparalleled. It wasn’t for his own sake that he was scared, it wasn’t for the fans, it wasn’t even for the careers and lives of his friends and colleagues. It was all for Bill. Everything Bill had poured his heart and soul into for years could all be gone in an instant, and he would have no way of stopping it, no matter how hard he wished. He could feel deep inside that this wasn’t like all the other times Bill had lost his voice, this was far worse. Something more fundamental had happened and Tom didn’t know what to do.

“We’ll get a doctor, okay?” he found himself whispering into the top of Bill’s still stiff hair, not caring that it was still sticky with spray. “We’ll fly you back home and fix this.”

The events afterwards were a little bit of a blur, all he could see or think about was Bill. He couldn’t care less that their fans were waiting in front of the stage for any news of what had just happened. They didn’t matter; not when it came to Bill. Against his will he was shuffled onto the stage, mumbling nonsense into the microphone about Bill being ill and having to cancel. He didn’t know why _he_ had to be there. The translator was just repeating everything that was being said anyway. Why couldn’t _she_ give the damn announcement?

This was one of the times where he really couldn’t fathom what people couldn’t understand about the word _twin_.

And of course as soon as Tom was able he boarded the next flight back to Germany. He still regretted not travelling back on the same flight as Bill but he tried to make up for it by being there every step of the way through Bill’s surgery and his recovery. In fact he hovered so much that it almost got to the point where Bill pretended that he didn’t want Tom there, but naturally Bill never _really_ wanted Tom to be anywhere but by his side.

Bill was constantly kicking himself for underestimating the damage that could be done to his voice if he didn’t warm it up and rest it properly. So, he promised himself that when he was able to speak once more he would never again tell Tom everything was fine when it wasn’t.

Right after saying that he loved him of course.

 

Five.

It was a brilliant idea, a fantastical idea even, and Bill was most definitely excited. After all he’d never tried it before and new things were exciting, unless they involved vegetables in some way. They were far less interesting. Positively deplorable even, not that he was one hundred percent sure what the word actually meant, but he thought it summed up the feeling about right.

At the age of nine Bill felt he had a good grasp of his way around the kitchen. Of course he’d never really _cooked_ anything before, he’d mostly just gotten under his mother feet in a helpful manner and licked up the spare cake mix despite his mother’s warnings of salmonella. Bill hadn't gotten food poisoning yet, so he figured it was safe enough. Tomi on the other hand worried far too much about germs and things, so he never shared Bill’s joy of eating batter from the bowl, but he enjoyed the washing up afterwards quite a lot.

Fairly recently the two of them had met Georg and Gustav; their new little band mates who Bill and Tom looked up to as the cool older kids. And while it was the twins’ birthday soon; Bill was more excited about Gustav’s birthday, he was turning _eleven_. Bill thought that double digits were the holy grail of age, after all concepts like turning eighteen or, heaven forbid, thirty were far from the small child’s mind. Ten: that was grown up.

And Bill was quite sad that he had missed Gustav turning ten, but because he was a good friend (after all as Tom would attest, Bill made firm friends spectacularly easily - it was normal friends he had a problem making) he had decided that he would treat Gustav turning eleven as being of equal importance to turning ten. Bill, having no money, had decided that the most amazing present would be to make a cake. From scratch.

He had proposed this idea to both Tom and his mother and, admittedly slightly to Bill’s surprise, they had both thought it was a good idea. Simone had dug out her old ‘Cake Recipes for Children’ book and kitted Bill out in one of her aprons.

“Do you want me to help you, sweetie?” she asked gently.

“No, I’ll be fine,” said Bill with such a bright, confident smile that his mother had no choice but to smile herself and let Bill be, with a promise that if he needed any help he only had to ask.

“Should I make cake too?” Tom inquired.

Bill shook his head. “We don’t need to _both_ make one, Tomi. I think you should make him a card, everyone likes birthday cards.”

Tom thought this a sensible idea and left Bill to his own devices.

***

Making cakes was _disastrous_. First of all, Bill found it really hard to open the bag of flour. In the end he pulled it so hard that when it finally _did_ open it exploded, sending flour into his hair _and_ causing him to bang the side of his elbow. Then the book had said to melt the butter in the microwave for just a few seconds, but Bill didn’t realise he had to remove the foil, so the stupid thing almost blew up!

By the time he had gotten around to making what frankly amounted to lumpy glue more than batter he realised he hadn’t the faintest notion of how to turn on the oven. As he sat at the kitchen table practically in tears he thought bitterly to himself that it was probably a good thing he couldn’t turn on the oven, he’d probably just burn the cake and most likely himself in the process.

Tom came in about five minutes later with a little card covered in crayon and glitter, holding it out proudly to show Bill the awesome scary dragon he had drawn on the front, but as soon as he saw Bill weeping he put the card down and rushed to his twin’s side to comfort him.

“Did you hurt yourself, Bibi?” he asked, voice laced with concern.

Bill gave a huge sniff and shook his head, wailing. “It’s all gone wrong, Tomi.”

“Shush Billy, it’ll be fine. We’ll get mummy to help us. She’s good at making stuff.”

Bill was a little disappointed that he hadn’t been able to finish the thing completely on his own, but he conceded that help was probably necessary.

Making cakes with his mother and brother in tow, Bill decided, was a lot more fun than trying to struggle on his own. Simone had mostly just supervised and had let Bill and Tom do all the fun parts. The sponge was fluffy and light and not in any way burnt, Bill had a large amount of fun with the icing pens. All in all the earlier disaster of the morning felt like a million miles away.

And it turned out that even the glue batter from before tasted good.

 

Nought.

Bill had felt it coming. The urge had been filling him from the tips of his toes to the top of his head for weeks if not months, years even. Nothing seemed to dampen it; that burn, slow and steady throughout his body, pooling in his stomach, shooting up from the base of his spine.

Sometimes a single glance made his heart flitter, then shatter in one fell swoop as it once again hit him how futile his feelings were. It’s not like they would ever be reciprocated.

It was ridiculous anyway; who... _wanted_ their twin of all people. It just wasn’t right, wasn’t _normal_. He supposed it wasn’t like Bill was _ever_ normal, but that was beside the point. This was beyond the bounds of acceptability, even for him.

The feeling that you knew beyond a shadow of a doubt who you loved and cared for more than anyone, the person your heart knew you were destined to spend your life with, was a feeling too strong and complex for most sixteen year olds to deal with. That feeling mixed with certain knowledge that it didn’t matter how you felt because it made not one iota of difference to the likelihood of you having that person, was a combination of feelings that could strike Bill down even on the happiest of days.

It was shortly after their first hit song had come out. This was the time when they had finally made it in the big bad world of show business. Bill was desperately trying not to drop his guard. There was a party, one of many they had attended lately, and there was far too much sharp, biting champagne being passed around. Tom was looking practically ethereal in the soft lights of the club.

They had stuck together the entire night; Tom didn’t trust the higher ups to keep their hands off his beautiful baby brother, and Bill was happy for the chance to make sure that Tom didn’t break his heart, already bruised by the sight of Tom flirting with nameless groupies.

Currently the twins were sitting by the bar deciding what drinks they could get away with. It was perfectly legal to have the beer and the wines, but both of them really fancied having a go at some of the spirits. They were halfway through their plan to procure a bottle of sweet apple vodka when Bill had gotten distracted by the way Tom was nervously playing with his lip ring. The motion of the little loop of metal had made Bill stop talking halfway through a sentence so he could just keep staring at it.

Tom dropped his head to meet Bill’s gaze, tipping his head to the side in a manner that to a fuzzy Bill looked almost coy, and definitely inviting.

“Biiill,” Tom sing-songed, “earth to Bill.”

It was a split second decision that made Bill lean forward and press his lips to his twin's. They lingered there, unmoving, nervous, waiting for a reaction. When Tom had put his hands on his shoulders for a moment Bill let himself believe that he was about to be pulled close, but he wasn’t surprised when he was gently pushed away.

It was very strange, Bill thought, that such a simple action could shatter his whole being so completely.

He stumbled off his stool and all but ran to the nearest bathroom. Bill was feeling the urge to throw up, and not because of any alcohol consumption. He had mistakenly thought that Tom would be too shocked to follow him, but no more than a minute after he had locked himself in the cubicle there was a knocking on the door.

“Bill, let me in, we need to talk.”

Bill was never able to shut Tom out, literally or figuratively. The latch was hesitantly undone and the door opened. Bill knew he must have looked a mess, the black mascara that had been lining his eyes almost certainly smudged in black streaks down his face by now.

“What was that about?” Tom asked.

Bill decided not responding was probably the best course of action at this point, something Tom obviously picked up on fairly quickly.

“Bill,” Tom pressed on, “do you love me?”

Bill had been staring at his shoes and was still disinclined to raise his head at all. The floor was safe; he couldn’t bear the rejection he might have if he looked into Tom’s eyes.

“Of course I love you. You’re my brother; how could I not?” Bill all but mumbled.

“You know that’s not how I mean it. Are you _in_ love with me?”

Tom cupped his hand around Bill’s jaw line, persuading his twin to raise his head and his eyes.

Bill still didn’t want to answer; if he scooted around the subject then they could pretend the little incident never happened, what didn’t Tom understand about that? Surely Tom wouldn’t want things to be strange between them, though Bill had certainly destroyed any chance they had of being normal.

“Bill,” Tom said simply, a hint of pleading in his voice.

Lips and voice trembling, Bill managed to squeeze out a single word.

“Yes.”

Tom’s soft smile made Bill’s heart stop for a second, surely this couldn’t really be happening… could it?

“Good,” was Tom’s reply before he softly closed his lips over Bill's.

He pulled backwards slightly, hot breath still dancing over Bill’s face. “But next time,” he began, “if you have to urge to kiss me; don’t do it in front of the record label, would you?”

Bill gave a watery chuckle and nodded, they would need to talk it out eventually, but that could wait for now.

Their lips joined once more.


End file.
